Hal's Engine: Wheee!

Oregon72 · Post by **Oregon72** » Sun Jul 25, 2010 10:53 pm

Had the pleasure of a quick bus tour at the Lab with Hal a few weeks ago. I'll be damned if that thing doesn't sound air-cooled at idle. Well thought out and great attention to all the necessary work-arounds required to fit everything without hacking. Wishing you many miles of smiles Hal.

tristessa · Post by **tristessa** » Wed Jan 05, 2011 10:54 pm

Not entirely done yet, but I finally (*finally*!) made some progress on the Interior Heat front last weekend. Even re-purposed the fan switch/knob/bracket hanging from the dealer-installed a/c that's hanging under the dash on the driver's side .. which sorta looks stock-ish.

I was having an absolute b*tch of a time trying to connect the HeaterCraft 200H unit to the stock defroster ducts and the floor vents .. until I got it through my thick skull that I didn't *have* to use teh stock plastic ducting inside the dash and made my own out of 1/4" poplar.

I'm losing about half the effective glovebox space, but I think I can live with that. Might get me to haul a little less crap all the time .. yeah right.

hambone · Post by **hambone** » Thu Jan 06, 2011 11:54 am

I'm not sure how I feel about that big freakin box under the dash, looks like a tube-amp-8 track.
But
1. it's not my bus
2. heat is nice

tristessa · Post by **tristessa** » Thu Jan 06, 2011 9:47 pm

I'm not thrilled to have it hanging there. It's not in the way or anything, just .. highly visible. I had to put the heater *in* the Bus not *under* the Bus, so it had to be mounted in/under/near the dash to tie it into the defrost vents without making big holes in the Bus. I tried to bury it inside the dash but it just wasn't gonna fit in there *and* let me have windshield wipers .. wrestled with it off-and-on for over a month trying to cram it in there.

The fan on that thing really moves some air, I gotta admit.

airkooledchris · Post by **airkooledchris** » Thu Jan 06, 2011 10:12 pm

ditch the blue zip tie, clean up the rest of the dangling wiring and the area on the whole won't seem nearly as out of place or cluttered. without a hell of a lot of work it could look almost factory installed.

tristessa · Post by **tristessa** » Thu Jan 06, 2011 11:25 pm

That zip tie is purple .. and they were the only ones I could find in the garage for some reason. Yeah, wiring needs cleanup; it's still a work in progress. Snapped those pics before I went to work yesterday...

The dealer-installed heater in the '54 Chevy pickup I used to have hung under the dash kinda like this does. It didn't hang quite as low and wasn't as close to the dash edge, but there was a lot more vehicle ahead of the dash in that rig. Couple extra cylinders in the engine too...

tristessa · Post by **tristessa** » Sun Jan 16, 2011 9:27 pm

Now with heat!

Since the last installment, I've

for days trying to get the heat to work and to get the Bus back to drive-ability without overheating. See, the problem with how & where I installed the heater is that the heater core is the highest point of the engine's cooling system, with the coolant reservoir about 5" lower than the core. This is what's scientifically referred to as Not A Good Thing; you want the highest point to have a filler cap or a bleeder screw so that you can "burp" all the air out of the engine, radiator and heater core (which is a miniature radiator).

So .. I had this bubble, and I couldn't get it out to save my ass. I tried looping the hoses from the heater high up under the dash with a bleeder screw and getting the air out that way .. no joy. I tried eliminating that higher-than-ever high point and jacking the rear of the Bus up in the air, putting the reservoir cap higher than the core .. worked! ..until I put the Bus on level ground, at which point the residual air in the reservoir worked its way to the heater core and put me back at Square One.

Then this afternoon in a stroke of inspired lunacy, I put a second coolant reservoir .. in the dash. The cap on it is higher than the heater core, and with that .. it's (apparently) solved for now. Went for a 1.5 hour drive this evening and no issues .. except for getting too warm with my coat on & having to turn the blower down.

Image links are apparently not working from the posting-end of things right now...? Says "It was not possible to determine the dimensions of the image." and won't let me save/submit the post.

Second reservoir & hose connection
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_1MlD6Zdkyrw/TTO9m ... CI0044.JPG

Cap:
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_1MlD6Zdkyrw/TTO9z ... CI0045.JPG

Fan switch, view from driver's seat:
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_1MlD6Zdkyrw/TTO9Z ... CI0043.JPG

And kind of an overall of the location, again from the driver's seat. Knees & feet for spatial reference:
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_1MlD6Zdkyrw/TTO8- ... CI0041.JPG

Xelmon · Post by **Xelmon** » Sun Jan 16, 2011 11:40 pm

Excellent! I was wondering if da problem was solved!

Now you too have heat. :)

gorge runner · Post by **gorge runner** » Mon Jan 17, 2011 9:31 am

Congratulations Hal!

The second tank should make coolant changes a breeze now that you can top-off the system from the absolute high point.

Missed you at Avery's yesterday. Nice turnout - very impressive collection of parts in the warehouse. They do some pretty interesting machining on new transaxle and engine cases too.

Now you need to get crackin' on the AC! Only six months until the end of winter.

Marc

Xelmon · Post by **Xelmon** » Mon Jan 17, 2011 11:01 am

GR, you are obviously a positive thinking individual...

I've lost most hope that I'll see sun with 80+ degrees before August.

Unless July 4th decides to be hellishly hot.

ruckman101 · Post by **ruckman101** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 1:14 am

Avery's?

neal

dtrumbo · Post by **dtrumbo** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 6:53 am

ruckman101 wrote:Avery's?

neal

It's a VW wrecking yard up in Woodland. I've bought a lot of stuff for my '79 convertible from them. Good folks to deal with. The best part... their wrecking yard is INDOORS so the rain isn't destroying what we're all trying to save.

From space...

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source= ... 3&t=h&z=18

gorge runner · Post by **gorge runner** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 8:09 am

Xelmon wrote:GR, you are obviously a positive thinking individual...

I've lost most hope that I'll see sun with 80+ degrees before August.

Unless July 4th decides to be hellishly hot.

Wow! You have some pretty high standards for what qualifies as summer. I'd settle for 70, hope for 80, love 90 and wish for 60 when its 100.

Avery's seems to be divided into tow basic departments: racing and resurrection. They have stacks of parts vehicles for many air-cooled buses and bug vintages. Several of parts vehicles seemed to be too good for parting out, so if anyone looking for a project vehicle or to resurrect a hulk, that's one more place to visit.

Marc

Xelmon · Post by **Xelmon** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 10:20 pm

gorge runner wrote:Wow! You have some pretty high standards for what qualifies as summer. I'd settle for 70, hope for 80, love 90 and wish for 60 when its 100.

Dude, the only way it could get worse than our last... Sull - that's a combination of Summer/Fall - is if snow would fall during summer, and it would rain during winter.

So yeah, I'm hoping that global warming hasn't totally ass-raped us. I miss the good ol' summer of 2000 or so. Nice hot clear summers. =)

justgimmecoffee · Post by **justgimmecoffee** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 10:43 pm

Man, finally. Hal gets the award for Most Determined Over the Long Term. It great to see, wish I had been there to assist.

You need to test in in the proper environment... take it camping.

Itinerant Air-Cooled

Itinerant Air-Cooled

Hal's Engine: Wheee!

Re: Hal's Engine: The Saga Nears It's End (for now)

Re: Hal's Engine: The Saga Nears It's End (for now)

Re: Hal's Engine: The Saga Nears It's End (for now)

Re: Hal's Engine: The Saga Nears It's End (for now)

Re: Hal's Engine: The Saga Nears It's End (for now)

Re: Hal's Engine: The Saga Nears It's End (for now)

Re: Hal's Engine: The Saga Nears It's End (for now)

Re: Hal's Engine: The Saga Nears It's End (for now)

Re: Hal's Engine: The Saga Nears It's End (for now)